Saturday, July 4, 2009

Blaine House = Bland House

Rick Perry, governor of Texas, rejected federal stimulus money, saying Texas could stand on its own. He said his state could secede from the union.

That was just before he complained the feds weren’t doing enough to help him fight swine flu.Then he fell off a mountain bike and broke his collarbone.

The limousine belonging to Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania was caught careening down the Interstate at 99 mph.

The Las Vegas Sun investigated the work habits of Nevada Governor Les Gibbons, and found that he doesn’t have any. He takes large amounts of vacation time, working a total of five days during a recent nine-week stretch.

Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana were both caught breaking ethics rules by giving gifts to legislators, not long after they had campaigned against giving gifts to legislators.

Mike Easley of North Carolina, who apparently fell off the political turnip truck about five minutes ago, said it’s the press’s job to “be nice to [him],” and whined that they weren’t doing their job when they exposed failures in the state’s parole system.

Compared with these people, Baldacci is about as interesting as C-SPAN at 3 AM. I can’t imagine him traveling to Vermont for maple syrup, let alone to Venezuela for an extra-marital tryst.

Can you picture what it must be like at those national governor’s conferences they have every year? You’ve got all these Schwarzeneggers and Palins and other larger-than-life characters, and then over in the corner is Baldacci, looking like a Certified Public Accountant hired for the occasion to make everyone else feel cool and hip.

Never mind Baldacci’s wasteful, pointless education initiatives, his budget bungling, or his inefficient use of federal stimulus money, or his apparent decision to banish the sun.

No, the biggest problem with John Baldacci, and the one thing we can truly fix if we play our cards right, is that he is hideously, remorselessly, painfully boring.

We can do better than this, Maine! In the 2010 election, we can reverse the doldrums that have left us irrelevant, and get ourselves on The Daily Show for once.

We need to change our image.

Some of the early candidates have potential. Start with Les Otten, former part-owner of the Red Sox, whose campaign logo (copied from Obama) and hairstyle (coiffed salt-and-pepper) smack of the slick and sleazy Hollywood politics we can only dream of.

Plus, can you imagine the fun headlines if he ever delivers a first-class scandal? “Guess We Otten-Not Have Voted for The Rich Guy.”

Independent Alex Hammer also has a cool name, one that evokes the power and seductive, quiet confidence of an ‘80s TV detective.

But he looks like a geriatric basset hound, only droopier, and he speaks knowledgeably and in detail about economic issues.

Not good.

Still, he has headline potential (“Hammer to the Slammer”) so let’s all donate $100 to his campaign.

Meanwhile, let’s see if we can get a statewide referendum going on this weather situation.

2 comments:

Since this campaign is going to be about "jobs jobs jobs" as I heard Dawn Hill say on the news last week, Hammer is in a good position to bring some in. I've written a few posts about Alex Hammer at my blog.

As for the weather, I took my daughter for a walk this morning. The breeze had a decidedly fallish quality to it. Old timers say "if you don't like the weather in Maine you should wait a few minutes" That's all fine and good, except every time I wait the weather becomes something I don't like.

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About Me

I am a high school teacher-freelance writer-dance instructor. My favorite snack is frozen raspberries. I spend my free time with my wife and daughter and sometimes I furtively admire my collection of obscure cardboard boxes.
Email me at chuckrates@gmail.com.